Reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) processes gain more and more interest in the desalination market.
Recently, seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) has become more widespread, using relatively large plants, whilst NF
is being applied before thermal desalination, as an advanced treatment for increased efficiency of thermal processes.
A proper and reliable seawater treatment before RO and NF, capable to retain suspended solids that cause fast
fouling and plugging of sensitive spiral wound membrane modules, is a key to success of desalination processes.
Reliability, high and constant quality of permeate, regardless of changes in seawater characteristics, are major
advantages of microfiltration/ultrafiltration (MF/UF) over conventional pre-treatment, allowing a stable and high
performance of RO and NF processes. This experimental work evaluates performance of two different UF, hollowfibre
membrane modules, when fed directly with raw seawater taken from the industrial harbour of Genoa. The
study reports the performance of nanofiltration process fed with UF permeate versus the performance of NF fed
with raw seawater.